


Stand By Me

by secretsoup



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: F/F, First Crush, Makeover, Second Person Perspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 22:35:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15694713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsoup/pseuds/secretsoup
Summary: Lena with make-up isn't all that different than Lena without make-up, which you think is surprising because people always talk about girls and make-up like it makes a big difference. She’s not less pretty, or more pretty, because she’s always pretty, and every time you look at her she seems prettier than the last time you looked at her, and OH, Lena’s a witch, isn't she? Maybe she's got you under a thrall, is this what it feels like to be under a thrall? This is so exciting, you've never been under a thrall before!





	Stand By Me

**Author's Note:**

> Fighting against the Jossening innnnn... three days, holy crap. We're in for a doozy, lads. 
> 
> Speculative post-finale written pre-finale. Operates under the assumptions made in Later, Later, in which Lena becomes a ward of the McDuck family post vague finale events and moves in with Webby.

It's probably weird that the favorite part of your morning is watching Lena sit at the little desk in your shared loft and put on her make-up. Hopefully it's just Webby-weird and not weird-weird, because you might have to stop doing it if it's weird-weird, but Lena doesn't seem to mind even a little bit and you love the little snaps and clicks of the process, the rattle of the bead in her liquid eyeliner, it feels good in your ears, and watching Lena do anything with concentration for any length of time feels good in your heart.

Lena _with_ make-up isn't all that different than Lena _without_ make-up, which you think is surprising because people always talk about girls and make-up like it makes a big difference. She’s not _less_ pretty, or _more_ pretty, because she’s _always_ pretty, and every time you look at her she seems prettier than the _last_ time you looked at her, and OH, Lena’s a witch, isn't she? Maybe she's got you under a thrall, is this what it feels like to be under a thrall? This is so exciting, you've never been under a thrall before!

You become distracted fairly quickly, because you used to imagine yourself as the knight in shining armor to Lena’s captive princess, but now that you know she's a witch it's not fair to think of her that way when you've seen what she can do to defend herself, so now in your head Lena’s a sort of gothic witch princess, and you're still her knight but she's got you in a thrall, but oh, then again no, because you don't need magic spells to want to be in between Lena and danger, magic couldn't make you do anything for her that you wouldn't do willingly anyway, o _r is that the thrall talking_?

You’re thinking _I need to find something to draw on so I can work this out_ when you notice Lena’s finished and is sitting at her makeshift vanity with her cheek propped in her hand, watching you with a little smile on her face and you think _see! See! Even prettier!_ This is the absolute prettiest she’s even been because in this moment she looks the way she did when you first met her at the amphitheater on the beach, dark heavy-lidded eyes and endlessly casual cool, only now she's _actually_ your friend instead of _fake_ your friend and that makes it 100 times better in 100 different ways.

She watches you long enough that you start to get nervous that you did something _weird-weird_ , except that she's still smiling, and then finally she says, “Let me do your make-up.”

And oh, sometimes this happens and it's a bad feeling, telling Lena no, because you're afraid she’ll think you're being a baby or you're not cool enough to be her friend, even though she's never thought either of those things about you when you tell her no, or at least, she’s never said them. You don't let her push you into doing anything you don't actually secretly want to do anyway, she’s like your own personal shoulder devil that way, and the few times you've gotten in trouble, it's definitely been worth it.

So, nervously, “I don’t think Granny would like that,”

and then, “Are you not allowed?”

and you say, “She’s never said, but I get a feeling,”

and so, “Then it's fine. We can wash it off before she sees.”

And she gathers up all her things, way more than than you've ever seen her actually use, and comes and sits near you on your bed. Everything clatters and clicks in that pleasing way when she spreads it all out with her hand, and she scoots close, close enough you can smell her cheap grocery store body spray ( _enchanted forest,_ you don't think this is what an enchanted forest smells like at all, there should be more earth and rot and electricity, but it's nice and it's Lena, and Lena is nice, so _enchanted forest_ is nice too). You realize very suddenly that this is going to mean being very close to Lena for a very long time and _that's_ the pay off because you aren't particularly interested in make-up or what it might look like on you and you wonder why you even _thought_ to say no, why you bothered pretending to let her talk you into it at all.

She uses her hands to tilt your face this way and that, considering her canvas. It's nice. You think it's nice to be touched, in general, to hug and hold hands, to rough house with the boys, to snuggle up on the floor in a nest of pillows under a shared blanket to watch a scary movie with Lena. It's weird to think how little of it you got before your household expanded threefold, and how devastatingly lonely you were. Sometimes it feels like an elaborate but unlikely dream come true, like maybe _you_ were the captive princess and _they_ were the knights in shining armor, come to free you from a lifetime of isolation.

 Lena uses a hard plastic headband to push the hair back from your face, and you like that too.

She fiddles with her phone and brings up a playlist of something folksier than the stuff you usually associate with Lena, by a woman with a haunting voice that definitely says _enchanted forest gothic witch princess_ , and tells you, “Close your eyes,” and you very much don't want to do that! But you do it because you don't want to get stabbed in the eye with liquid eyeliner either. You close your eyes and lean into her hands, and try to imagine what you might be to her in your self-indulgent fantasy mindscape.

Lena’s easy to pin down, and has been since you learned the truth about her. Lena is dark and cool and mysterious like the mossy side of the biggest oldest most mystical tree in the forest, and there is something smokey and elusive about her; it's easy to imagine her in a secret witchy cottage in the woods, overrun with ivy and a garden thick with lavender.  It's so silly to think you ever thought Lena was a captive princess to be rescued, when she grows hemlock and nightshade in her kitchen and wears oleander in her hair. ( _A crown of oleander_ , you think, _draw that!_ )

You open your mouth to ask Lena if she knows how incredibly toxic oleander is and which bugs eat it to gain the benefits of that toxin, but she shushes you still. “Don't move, I’ll smudge.” You hadn't realized how close she was with your eyes closed but now that you do you can feel your heartbeat in your _brain_ and remember absolutely nothing about oleander or any other toxic shrubs.

 _She's close enough to kiss,_ a strictly analytical part of your brain realizes, with no further suggestions or implications, like _the sky is blue_ or _water is wet_ or _Lena is soooo pretty._ Facts your brain processes and doesn't think about because there's nothing unusual about them, they aren't puzzles to be solved or codes to be broken and they're not even particularly interesting, like _lobsters keep growing their entire lives until they can't molt often enough to support their own growing mass_ . Just. _The distance between your faces is kissing distance_.

Then she tugs at the corner of your eye with her thumb and you think _haha that feels weird_ and you forget the completely unimportant thought about kissing.

Train of thought derailed, you let Lena’s hauntingly folksy witch music fill the cracks and wonder what it's like to be possessed. You never asked, because Granny told you not to. She said it might upset Lena, and that if Lena wanted to talk about it, she would. But you know Lena well enough by now to know that she might not want to talk about hard things if she doesn't have an opening, but you can't ask her, because if she's not ready, she might get upset! You're dying to know, because if there's a thing you _don't_ know, of course you want to know it, but also you want Lena to know how proud you are of her, how incredibly amazing she is, how brave and strong and cool. You try, sometimes, _Lena you're amazing, Lena you charming enchantress, Lena you silly starlight seraph,_ but usually she gives a kind of deadpan or sarcastic response and gets a funny look on her face, so you try not to do that so much anymore. You're getting a little better at reading when you've done something weird-weird and not just Webby-weird. You had thought it was Webby-weird before, but now you're starting to think that’s not the case.

 “Sorry, did that hurt?”

“Hm? What?” When you open your eyes, Lena is poised over you with a little brush. She has about 200 of them in total and she swears they're all for different things and you can't tell the difference but youre pretty sure you've only ever seen her use two.

“Your eyebrows did a thing.” She scowls and holds up two fingers over her eyebrows to demonstrate, for good measure. “Wanted to make sure I didn't hurt you.”

Something happens in your chest that feels a little like pain and a lot like something you don't have a word for. “I'm okay.”

“Okay,” she says. “Close ‘em, I'm almost done.”

You close your eyes and she returns to running the little brush through the feathers around your eyes. Now that you're paying attention to what she's doing instead of spacing out thinking about lobsters squeezing themselves to death in their own carapaces and if that's what it feels like to have two souls in one body, it feels impossibly nice. Is face touching a thing people do? Could you ask her to do this more often? Would she like it too?

What kind of weird would that be?

“Open and look up. Try not to blink.”

She rattles that little bead in the eyeliner and you know what this means, so you aren't too surprised when she starts tugging on your lower eyelid. It feels funny and _you_ feel funny to be stuck halfway through an eye-roll at her but she manages to get through both eyes before you let the giggles ruin her hard work. She takes the plastic headband back but instead of smoothing and rearranging, she cards her fingers through your hair, ruffling and fluffing with purpose. When she’s satisfied, she leans back and surveys her work.

“Not too shabby. Wanna see?”

You really kind of wish she would keep fussing with you, to be honest! But yes, you do want to see. So you go over to the desk where Lena keeps her little folding mirror to have a look, and Oh!

Oh, _wow_.

It's not what you were expecting at _all_.

You had thought she might do it like hers, mature dark smokey eyes, or even the kind of abstract cartoon vision you have in your head, in bright pink and sparkles, what you probably would have done yourself if she’d handed you the stuff and told you go wild, but!

She’s painted across your eyes in ashy black and earth red and okay yes, smokey purple, in sharp angles, and the way she ruffled your hair, wild and windswept, you look like someone dangerous, someone powerful, a valkyrie or an amazon, and oooOOHHHHH THAT'S IT, ISN'T IT? A battle hardened warrior princess, strong and brave, kind of like a knight, but sworn fealty only to only her own heart. (In this moment, something hiccups in the gears of your mind, the sand or grit of the beginning of an idea slows the whirring machinery of your imagination.) You don't _serve_ your princess, you don't protect her because it's your job, you do it because you want to, she’s not your liege, she’s your equal, because you're a princess too, and that means? That means??

(The grit becomes a pebble, a stone, a rock, and it all grinds to a screeching halt.)

What does that mean?

What are two princesses?

“Webby? You alright?”

You turn to look at her, feeling a little confused and maybe in shock, and she’s so pretty (every time. Every! Time!) you could cry.

Oooohhhh.

Oh, you know what two princesses are.

“Webby, I think you stopped breathing.”

You try to say _I'm fine_ but nothing comes out but a little gasp, so she’s probably right! Of course she’s right! She’s Lena! She's cool and stylish and confident and she did this awesome thing to your face because she’s good at things like that! She’s been strong and brave in the face of some _really scary stuff,_ and also she’s a _literal sorceress!_ She’s made you weak in the knees since the first time you met and you didn't notice?

You never thought that was... _weird_?

Lena gets up and joins you at the desk with a plastic package of make-up remover wipes. What are you supposed to say to her?? There's no secrets! You made a promise! You promised no secrets!

“Hey, it's okay.” She pulls out one of the wipes and tilts your face up with her hand under your bill, but when she looks at you she stops. “I'm sorry,” she says in a kind of earnestness you only ever hear from her when it's just the two of you alone, “I wasn't trying to make fun of you, I thought you'd like it.”

“Lena,” you croak, trying so hard not to cry and spoil the make-up because Lena is so sweet and thoughtful and she thinks you don't like it?? You can't let her think that! But when you try to say _Lena you amazing perfect dove_ your words fail you because that's _weird_ and she might not like it, she might not like you, not like that.

What do you do??

What

Do

You

Do?

Lena puts her arm around you, because she's a good person and she can tell something’s wrong, and she knows how to make you feel safe, the same way you sit with her and hold her hand and tell her random information to distract her when she wakes up from a nightmare or a passing shadow spooks her. She tucks you under her bill and you let her, burying your face in her collar, breathing her _enchanted forest_ and the faint, restless tang of her young magic.

“Wanna talk about it?” she says after what feels like two months and three weeks.

“I don't know,” you answer, because you _don't_ know. “I know I should, but I don't know if I want to.”

“That’s okay. You don't have to.”

“But we promised no secrets.”

Lena shrugs. “Not everything you don't say is a secret. Sometimes things are just...private.”

This is something to think about. What it feels like to be possessed is private. It's not a lie if she doesn't talk about it, it's just none of your business.

It might be a lie to tell Lena she’s your best friend when you want to be something different, though. It would be a lie to put on your British accents and pretend to be the beagle birds when you don't want to be her sister at all. It _is_ Lena’s business if you pretend to be someone to her that you're not, and it would be worse than what she did to you because no one's holding _you_ prisoner against your will, you're just cowardly and selfish.

The brave warrior princess of your fantasy mindscape would balk at the idea of this level of dishonesty! She would walk through fire to reach her love, and she would slay a hundred men to ensure her safety! She would feel no fear, and live every moment as if it were her last. If she took too many blows on the battlefield and perished without telling her beloved the truth of her heart, could she really say she had lived her life with no regrets?

You shake free of Lena’s arms and square your shoulders. No secrets, no lies.

New rule: No regrets.

(It's still scary though.)

“Sometimes,” you say, “I pretend we’re characters in a story.”

And you tell her.

You tell her about how she was a captive princess waiting to be rescued, how she was guarded in a tall tower by a terrible black dragon that breathed fuschia fire. You tell her about how you were her favorite knight, how you rode to her rescue on a shining steed, climbed her treacherous tower, single handedly slayed that dragon with your enchanted sword, and swept her off to safety. She listens as you pace around the loft, miming your heroism with great arcs of an invisible sword (it's not like you don't have swords, you have _plenty,_ and you know how to use them, but maybe now isn't the time to be waving them around.) You show her the drawings, the ones of her in a smokey purple gown, of you in gleaming armor, the only ones you haven't been comfortable sharing, not because they’re secret, but because they're _private_ , and she sits down on the floor to look through them while you talk.

You tell her about how you stopped liking these versions of your story, because they didn’t feel right. You tell her about her witchy ivy-covered cottage in the center of an enchanted wood, where convenient rays of golden light slant through the canopy to light her gardens and the colored glass in the windows and almost nothing else. You tell her about the things she grows there, about the spells she weaves, wards for protection and charms for health and luck, but also dangerous things for defense, enchanted daggers, poisons to kill tyrants. You have some drawings of these versions of her too, but you only just thought of the crown of oleander and haven’t had a chance to draw it yet, so you describe it to her.

You tell her you haven’t been sure who you were in this story. You show her options, drawings you did, trying to figure it out, a wayward amnesiac knight under a curse, a lost traveler succumbed to a love potion, but nothing was right, until just now.

This part you have to make up as you go, so you feel a little scatter-brained and manic, but you’re so close. You hail from a faraway land of brave amazonian warriors, heir to the throne. You’re strong and fearless and fair, but you’re also exceedingly lonely. You decide to travel the world in search of knowledge and adventure and perhaps, maybe, companionship. You meet many people and make many friends, but none of them fill the void in your heart.

Until you brave the treacherous enchanted forest to meet the recluse princess at its dark heart, and she is the most beautiful creature you've ever seen in your life.

 At this point you look, and Lena is neither looking at your drawings, nor to you for the end of your story. She’s worrying the edge of her sleeve, absently. She seems uncomfortable. You swallow your disappointment and push forward.

You tell her that your warrior falls madly in love with her enchantress, and swears to protect her no matter what and there’s no tricks, no thrall, no love potion, no curse. Just respect and admiration and utter, unconditional devotion. That your imaginary version of Lena feels the same way, and that you make an amazing and terrifying team, and that back to back, your sword and her stave, there’s nothing you can’t do if you work together. You live happily for the rest of your lives, traveling the globe, seeking treasure, having adventures, defeating evil, hand in hand.

“But,” you say, finally. “It’s just a dumb story.”

You plop on the floor next to her, emotionally exhausted. That's the best you can do. You hope she knows what that all means because if you have to be any more specific your heart will expand like an overfilled balloon and pop.

Lena finally shuffles your papers back into a tidy pile, hands them back. She doesn't look at you, and you don't know what her face is doing because you're really not very good at that and you dont know if you ever will be. She’s twisting the end of her hair between her fingers and is quiet for a long time.

“You skipped all the good stuff,” she says finally, her voice a little unnaturally light. “How did we fall in love?”

“What?”

“I mean, that's _my_ favorite part of any story. You can't just say ‘ _they fell in love_ ’, you're supposed to show how it happens, silly.” She leans back on her hands and regards you coolly. “I bet we worked together and outsmarted an entire band of highway brigands and their ruthless queen. We fought a little at first, but I was so impressed by your quick thinking and crazy warrior training, I couldn't help but like you.”

You blink owlishly at her. What?

“And the time we slayed the horrible beast terrorizing the capital city. It swallowed us alive, but together we cut it open from the inside. There were guts _everywhere_. I still wasn't used to working well with others, yknow, being a witch hermit in the woods and all. But I knew we made a good team.”

Lena’s surprisingly good at this.

“But I didn't know for sure until you saved me from the sleeping curse. I dreamed I hurt you.” She doesn't elaborate on this one, and you don't know what she's talking about. She swallows hard and says, “I couldn't stand that. That's when I knew I wanted to be by your side always, to keep you safe whenever I could. That's when I knew I’d choose you over anyone else on earth, and I’d stop at nothing to keep you from harm. _That's_ when I fell in love.”

She considers what she's just said, seems satisfied, and waits. It's your turn, but it's hard to think when she’s looking at you like that. Lena has the prettiest eyes you've ever seen and sometimes when she looks at you it's hard to think straight.

(Ha ha.)

“I,” you say, mind racing. But when you reach for the fiction you don't find anything but the truth. “From the first moment I saw you. Sorry if that's shallow! Or not very interesting. But it's what’s real. I just didn't know what it was until just now.”

She laughs and it's the most perfect sound you've ever heard. “That's actually _really_ cute. I like it.”

Cute! _Cute!_ Something big and bright expands in your chest and because you’re _you_ sometimes you just have to do what your heart wants in the moment, whether it's weird-weird or not, so you launch yourself at her. She catches you, but even though you’re smaller, you're also stronger, so you go down in a giggling, gasping heap on the floor, your papers scattering. You realize very suddenly that all the times she’s been looking at you like she does with her lazy smile and dreamy eyes, that it's possible she’s been thinking the kind of things about you that you've been thinking about her,  that you're something special, that you're amazing and bright and brave and strong and pretty, that she's proud of you, that she's happy to know you, that she would walk through fire for you.

"It's not actually a story, just so you know," you say suddenly because it's the kind of thing you'd misunderstand, and you're suddenly afraid you did, in your giddy confusion. "It's real."

"Webby, you dork. Of course it's real."

“Aaaaaaaaaaaa,” you say softly into her sweater, just a wordless vocalization of sheer overwhelmed joy.

She laughs fondly and you hear it like soft thunder in the distance with your head on her chest. “Same, honestly.”

You settle into comfortable, awed silence, just. Processing all of this. She plays with your hair a little, which is suuuuper nice, and your eyes drift closed, and you become aware that Lena’s phone is still playing music from your bed. That lady with the haunting voice is covering a song you recognize as pretty old, and her modern vocals are at odds with the violin and brass instrumental, but it's lovely in its own way, and it's a good song. _I won't be afraid_ , she sings, and you agree!! How could you ever be afraid with Lena beside you?

It's silly to think you ever were.

  


You don't tell anyone. It's not a secret, it's just...private. It's not really anyone's business anyway. But also, nothing’s really changed, because whatever this is, you've been it for a while now already, you just didn't know it yet. Maybe that's _weird._

But that's just fine with you.

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of references to my own fanart.
> 
> Thanks to Sam King for making me cry every time I listen to Florence + The Machine now.


End file.
